A Chorley pie shop closes, and Paul Bowen's post reaches the prime minister
Good Morning Britain's Short on Bowen Pies drew hundreds of comments, many of them about the shops that close and what opens in their place.
Good Morning Britain
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 111,697 views a day, 14 times a normal first day on this channel (7,900).
Pie maker forced to shut up shop after business pressure
What does it take for a Lancashire pie shop to get an answer from the prime minister? For Paul Bowen of Bowen Pies, one post was enough. He called out Andy Burnham on social media over the taxes and energy costs squeezing small businesses, and the Short's description says the post drew a direct response from the prime minister. Bowen says national insurance rates and high energy prices have forced one of his stores to shut.
Good Morning Britain's Short on his story passed 100,000 views in under a day, far beyond what the breakfast show's Shorts usually reach. A longer version, titled as Andy Burnham's response, did nearly as well. In that one, Bowen speaks live from outside the shop in Chorley that is due to close.
The comment section moved even faster than the views. Hundreds of people wrote in during the first 20 hours, where a GMB Short usually collects a handful of comments. Much of the talk is about what replaces shops like his, and vape shops and barbers come up again and again. Others share their own high-street losses. One viewer mentions a Lincoln butcher that closed after 130 years, another a friend's family pie shop that had been open since 1920, and a third an Edinburgh street where shops come and go within a year. A few people draft their own tax plans, VAT bands and all.
The same morning gave the show a very different hit. Andy Bell of Erasure came into the studio for the duo's 40th anniversary album and was asked why he won't share the stage with Vince Clarke on the coming tour. A Short asking how worried Britain should be about the death of a Russian plague lab worker also ran well ahead of usual. Even so, the channel as a whole is running below its normal daily pace, which leaves a pie shop in Chorley as the morning's clearest draw.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Good Morning Britain
- Subscribers
- 1,380,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 3,081,936
- Channel views, pace per day
- 225,874 (on a normal day: 422,983)
- Video published
- October 7, 2026
- Video views so far
- 103,079 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 111,697
The numbers
A Short from Good Morning Britain usually has a quiet first day. This one did not.
💡 Test your knowledge
Before Erasure, Vince Clarke co-founded which band?
Vince Clarke was a founding member of Depeche Mode and wrote much of their 1981 debut album before leaving to form Yazoo and later Erasure.
